The Inferiority of French Superiority

I guess that if you are a country that has gotten trounced in every war you've been in during the last three or four hundred years, and if you are the proud inventor of such bizarre "advances" as the MiniTel, and you have managed to be named the "Wrongway Feldman" of the community of nations, you have the right to feel superior.

(Who is Wrongway Feldman, you ask? Look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrongway_Feldman).

As both of you who read my blogs know, I am often corrected by French people, not the least of which is a person living here at home, by their saying to me, "We in France..."

The "we", of course, is used in the royal sense, much like that other useless monarch, the queen of England, uses the word "we", as in "WE believe that young boys should take cold baths in winter to temper their spirits."

The subject of this rant comes to mind because every time I hear this "We in France..." thing, it rubs me wrong. It seems to me that there is an implied "We know better than the rest of the world how to...." (fill in the blank with any activity known to man).

Here is the dialog from a recent conversation I had with a French university professor during the meeting of a book club to which I was invited. The subject was Latin American literature and in particular the books of young Mexican authors who disregard the cannons of "good grammar" and "correct punctuation":

The professor: The fact of the matter is that I don't consider that literature.

Me: The fact of the matter is that those young authors don't care what you consider literature.

The professor: Well, that might be, but the Real Academia Española has strict rules concerning...

Me: Well, we Latin Americans don't give a hoot for what that stuffy body of old geezers think is the right usage of language, especially as it is spoken in Latin American countries.

The professor: That might be but having conducted research into Latin American literature for the last 20 years, we in France...

Me: You in France always seem to be 20 years behind everything. And, you have not produced anything new for the last 50 years. You are still dragging out the impressionist for exhibitions, while the rest of the world has gone on to installations, minimalist art, and whatnot (not that I like the stuff, but that's what's happening); you keep reviving rock starts from the 50s and 60s 'cause you haven't had a figure of note since Brel or Piaff. My God, the best you've got is that ridiculous Johnny Halliday who has to be taken on stage in a wheel chair. You still have millions of MiniTel users while the rest of the world has moved on the the World Wide Web! And as far as literature is concerned, you have to import Russians and Englishmen because the best that the Prix Goncourt can do is come up with a high-school biology teacher who considers himself a "Sunday writer". As far as Latin American literature is concerned, you probably think that the "happening thing" are the authors of the Boom, most of which are in the 70s and 80s.

The moderator: Please gentlemen, we won't fight about this...

Me: No fight,no fight...just letting the gentleman know that WE in Latin America don't need anyone to tell us what is literature and what is not.

I made trips to France in the late 70s and early 80s, and I have been here on a more or less permanent basis for eight years now. Yet, I hardly consider myself an expert of French culture, politics, manners, or any other specific manifestation of the Gallic way of life. Yet, it seems that all the locals need is a few vacations abroad spent mostly in luxury hotels and exclusive beaches to become experts in, say, Spain, Morocco, or even Mexico. (Oui, je connais Mexique. J'ai été à Cancun!).

Here is a member of our household (who shall remain nameless) on a point of language (the use of a colloquial phrase) that we were discussing:

Me: No, the phrase should be...

Household member: But, that is the way the Spanish use it.

Me: No, that is not the way they use it; in fact...

Household member: But, I know it is. I have been to Spain on vacation with my parents several times and that is the way they use it.

Me: That last time you were on vacation with your parents in Spain, Franco was still in power and the trains ran on steam. I think you misremember.

Household member: I do not misremember. We in France know Spain very well, and...

Me: We in Mexico have been speaking Spanish for 500 years, and I have been speaking the same for 60, not to mention that I have studied Spanish Literature, frequently read Spanish newspapers, listen to the Spanish news, and on occasion go to Spain, so I guess WE have a bit more knowledge of the language, formal and otherwise, than a French vacationer might have.

Household member: Nevertheless, I will ask my friend, who is a teacher of Spanish and whose parents are Spanish.

The Gallic spirit, fueled by Gallic pride, does not give up easily.

I was having a cup of wine at a local spot in downtown Biarritz when the man standing next to me asked if I was English (something that often happens). I said I was not and told him I was in fact Mexican. He smiled in surprise and said:

"You must find it very different here, especially the people."

"Why do you think that?" I asked.

"Well, the Mexican people are so warm and gregarious; we French are cold and arrogant, not too friendly."

"I don't know about cold and unfriendly. Most people have treated me very decently; but, I would agree on the arrogance. But, I think that is mainly taught, not a part of your character."

"Why do you think it is taught?"

"I think, although I am not an expert, that it has to do with the difficult history this country has had. Wars and revolutions have created a need for self-assertion, that no matter how bad things got, France would survive because of the many things good it has, among them its people. It is no surprise that in school you are told that French is the most beautiful language, and the food is the best, and so on. Although, I have to admit, the countryside is the most beautiful I have every seen."

"Well," he said, "we do think that we have the best of everything: food, country, language...but, when we travel, we find out that there are many other places with good things, too. And that some things here are very good, but not the best."

"You know what they say: travel educates. But, one thing is sure: your wine is still the best."

We clicked our glasses to that and ordered another round.

A List of Reasons Why I Dislike Lists

In 18th Century France, a bunch of intellectuals got together and decided to compile an "encyclopedia". They called themselves, of cours, encyclopédistes. The editor in chief was the great Denis Diderot and his second in command was Jean le Rond d'Alembert.

The first order of business for these folks was to compile (what else?) a list of the folks who were contributors to the encyclopedia! Ever since, the French have refined and developed this mania for lists.

Lists are everywhere you turn: you go to a government office and ask a question (Can you please tell me how I can apply for a...) and no matter what you fill in the blank with, the bureaucrat, without uttering a word, opens a drawer, and pulls out a list. "Voila!" she or he says in triumph before looking over your shoulder and yelling out "Next!"; in the supermarket, the doors are covered with lists of approved products for x, y or z, products that will not be sold to minors, the day's specials, things found and that can be claimed at the lost and found, and so on.

But the most annoying place I encounter lists (or at least annoying to me) is in speech. The French have a penchant for listing things in support of an argument, as way of explaining or exemplifying something. And, most maddening, as a way of going into rapture about a thing or event.

"Ah, c'est un jour merveilleux, aujourd'hui. Le soleil, les nuages, l'air, l'arôme des fleurs ..." and the person will go on and on for about a half hour listing all the things that make the day a marvelous day.

The gentleman pictured above wrote 17,288 entries into the encyclopedia. This guy did nothing but whip out articles and list of articles and list of list of articles. I can just imagine what it must have been like to talk to this guy:

Uh, Count Louie, I hear you write for the encyclopedia.

Oui, I write articles on physiology, chemistry, botany, pathology, political history...

Yeah, yeah, your countship, but it's probably a lot of work. I hear your up to 15,000 articles already. How do you do it?

I hired secretaries, accountants, transcribers, copyists, researchers, invest...

Right, right, you must have spent a fortune 'cause I hear you do this out of your own pocket.

Yes, but I have investments, businesses, inherited money, my medical practice...

I bet no one could get a simple sentence out of the guy.

At a dinner party at home, one of our guests was a very contentious person. As is the case in most dinner parties, the guests were seated, man, woman, man, woman, and so on. He was seated next to a no less contentious woman. Somehow the conversation got on to a documentary that had been recently shown on French television about how France had difficulty facing its past, and particularly its past as a colonial power and the injustices committed in those times. The woman was all for France facing up to its past, and the man argued France had nothing to apologize for. I will spare you the French and transcribe in English the gist of the conversation:

The woman: But, look at the crimes and atrocities committed in Algeria, Morocco, Senegal, Tunisia...

The man: Mais oui, but we gave them education, the French language, culture, a country, a name...

The woman: But, they paid for it with exploitation, submission, loss of identity...

The man: Not at all, they kept their language, customs, ideas, religion...

These two persons fired lists at one another for a good 45 minutes. It was very amusing to one and all sitting around the dinner table, except to me because I found it as amusing as reading a dictionary for fun, enjoyment, pleasure...(Ah, damn it! Now they got me doing it!)

We at home are no strangers to this sort of thing, especially as it concerns the French side of the equation. In fact, this blog was prompted when I remembered a conversation we had last summer. We were sitting outside (The French rush to their garden to eat outside if the weather is anywhere reasonably good. It's funny to see a family of 10 sitting around a small table in their two square meters of garden when the sun is out. But that is a theme for another blog.) Anyway, we were sitting outside, enjoying the sun, the warmth, the cloudless sky, the...you get the picture.

The first course of our meal was a soup. If you are one of the four persons who has read most of my blogs you will recall that my wife gets her dander up when I don't go into raptures about her soups. This occasion was no exception: I was happily munching away at my bread and slurping up my bowl of soup when a harrumph interceded between my bliss and my serene state of mind.

My wife: Harrumph, harrumph...

Me: (thinking) Oh,oh...what have I done now?

My wife: You have not said anything about my soup.

Me: (Quickly going over my options of answers and calculating the consequences of each. I decided to go with a pleasant but uncommitted answer.) Oh, its very nice.

My wife: Very nice? You don't say anything about the flavor, the consistency, the way the duck fat enhances the spices...

Me: (Trying to figure out where all of this is going and how I will come to grief over a still unnamed fault I have committed.) Well, all of the above are very good, I...

My wife: You say nothing, not a word, not a compliment, not an opinion, not a...

Me: (Setting up a barricade of annoyance to see if that will stop the onrushing hordes of lists coming at me.) Look, stop throwing lists at me. Ask me one thing at a time!

My wife: Augh! Really! I expect rapture, delight, compliments, from you, and all I get is OK, it's fine, real good.

Me: Well, if you don't stop, desist, arrest your nagging, discontinue your badgering, I will leave, go elsewhere to have my soup, decamp the table, slurp soup somewhere else, break bread with a stranger in another place, take my watery item and ingest it in another planet!

Needless to say that my barrage did not help and the meal went south from there. In spite of the lovely weather, we created our own little storm in a glass of water.

What annoys me is that people here use these lists like a battering ram, trying to daze you into submission by the shear amount of words thrown at you. I am not a multitasking sort of guy. I like to do things one at a time, each until completion. If something has not been finished, I do not start something else. So, when someone says to me: "This is not right, not complete, not finished." I take umbrage because each one of these things means something different and should be considered separately.

But, people are careless and want to throw everything at you all at once, without thinking that these lists may contain contradictory elements. Take that fellow at our dinner party. When he said that France had given its colonies "education, culture, a language". Firstly, all of the people in the colonies already had a language, a culture, and educating someone does not necessarily mean you improve them. I can educate someone on how to use a gun to kill; that's hardly and improvement of the person.

By lumping all of those terms, there is no opportunity for discussing each. Perhaps that is the intention of these list makers.

Whatever the cultural, educational, personal reasons, the French have this annoying habit, I will have to abide by it, tolerate it, listen to it stoically, and accept it, although I am learning to ignore it, shut my ears to it, think of something else, and just plain tune it out when it happens.